Saturday Morning Vacation

Today was a bit of a rainy morning here in Seattle. Exactly the kind that of morning that might encourage a local family, with say a small toddler who loves books, to forgo a trip to the park in favor of a visit to their local library.

For arguments sake, let's say this family did just that. And that, being so engaged, said family's paternal figure also took the opportunity to once and for all settle a ridiculously steep library fine for a few crappy sounding movies, 2 weeks overdue when returned, and none of which had actually been viewed by any member of the family.

Also, assume that, to ease the pain of grinding his teeth so hard while writing the aforementioned check, our protagonist, the father, may have decided to use the new found clearance on his library card to check out some musical discs he has recently been eager to 'sample', thus restoring a small sense of balance to his otherwise hectic existence.

Funny thing. We were at our local library this very morning too. We may have even run into this family for all I know since we also live in Seattle. It's a small world.

Anyway, moving on. After OUR trip to the library, Mrs. LIAYF suggested that we do something spontaneous. Live a little. Go to a place we rarely get the opportunity to visit now that we have a little guy. After all, it was lunchtime and, conveniently enough, this place was right next door to the library. Yes, she suggested we visit.....

The Fancy Grocery Store!

And no Dorthy, we were NOT in our shabby club-card market anymore.

I must say, this place might just qualify as a marvel of the known world. The smells, the colors, the displays. It was as if we had entered the Garden of Eden itself. The produce aisle was impeccable, with nary an apple out of place, all reflecting brilliant light off of their shiny skins. There was a rich smelling coffee shop, a flower bar, and a high end kitchen store. There was even a cheese and olive island, with workers in white overcoats smiling widely at us, offering samples as we passed. Yes, we sampled, but I consciously tried to avoid looking at the prices for fear of burning my retinas.

That's not all either. There was also a bakery, with gorgeous cakes and desserts lined up in a display which would have put any local specialty shop to shame. Not one sat there in a pink cardboard box, next to a loaf of dry bread as we have so become accustomed to. Lukas even starred at these cakes in seeming disbelief for a few moments, before his right arm rose and he gingerly stepped, fingers outstretched, towards a beautiful example which could have easily graced the cover of 'Martha Stewart Living'. As you may have surmised, his hand was yanked away in near record time. And at that we moved along.

Finally, after taking in the ambiance for a few more minutes, we made our way to the place we had intended to reach. The Deli. The glass display covered endless salads, casseroles, and sandwiches of seemingly every variety. There was even a Prime Rib and rotisserie station which looked especially delicious. Instead though, we opted for the soup counter where a variety of savory sounding soups were there to choose from.

Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas chose a rich tomato soup with moist cornbread on the side, while I opted for a very satisfying bowl of Mushroom Oyster with a tasty olive roll. Then, having made our selections we sat ourselves down at the counter and enjoyed our meal as we chatted about our morning and watched all the interesting people go by. Yes, it was a fun and visually pleasing experience, but with a Seattle mortgage and a toddler, realistically this is not a venue we will frequent often.

Instead, it was like a Saturday morning vacation. Sadly, we didn't even get pictures.